Fig. 4: Intrinsic nuclear spin lifetime with pulsed detection scheme.
From: Single-shot readout of the nuclear spin of an on-surface atom
a Schematic of the pulse measurement scheme. One detection event consists of two probe pulses, with a variable waiting time τ in between, with zero bias voltage. Each probe pulse consists of a DC voltage (70 mV) and an RF signal at fprobe = 12.75 GHz, corresponding to mI = −7/2 (Bz = 1.6 T, VRF = 22.6 mV). For each τ, we repeat between N = 443 and N = 704 detection events. b Bottom: section of a measured current time trace (τ = 600 ms) showcasing three detection events. Top: zoom on the shaded area. For each event, the current of the probe pulses A and B indicates whether mI = −7/2 (1) or not (0), based on the current threshold (dashed line) determined from a histogram of all probe pulses. c, d Conditional probabilities P(B|A) for τ = 600 ms and τ = 8000 ms, respectively. e Corrected conditional probability P*(1|1) as a function of τ. P*(1|1) represents the intrinsic decay of the nuclear spin. An exponential fit (Ae−τ/T1, black curve) gives the intrinsic lifetime T1 of the mI = −7/2 nuclear spin state (T1 = 5.3 ± 0.5 s, A = 0.81 ± 0.03).
